We have said it before: taxonomies are everywhere, and that includes the classroom. Education Week Teacher brought this interesting information to our attention in their article, “Response: Ways to Use Learning ‘Taxonomies’ in the Classroom.”

Taxonomies categorize anything, including different levels of questioning and learning. Most teachers are aware of this and likely think of the most famous version, Bloom. However, there are many more.

This particular article highlighted some reviews of practicing teachers who speak about how they use taxonomies in their lesson planning. To quote one of those teachers, “Bloom’s, and other taxonomies, are a tool. Like most tools, the way they are implemented is of vast importance.”

Another teacher said, ‘Teachers can use the taxonomies to evaluate their formative and summative assessments.  They can identify the thinking level of each assessment item and reflect on the percentage of items that are higher level.”

We do know that critical thinking is an important skill for all students to possess in order to successfully transition from high school to college and on to real life.

Melody K. Smith

Sponsored by Access Innovations, the world leader in taxonomies, metadata, and semantic enrichment to make your content findable.